


Notes

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Epistolary, M/M, Short Chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:47:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 9,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23106451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Charles receives a note from Toledo; events are set in motion.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 12
Kudos: 23





	1. Dear Major

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an ongoing story (I don't know how many chapters yet). There is some slight disrespect to military rank/ discipline, so please be warned. No offense is intended; it seemed in keeping with the characters.

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own. - Benjamin Disraeli 

***

The script on the page was surprisingly neat - almost friendly, somehow - and a complete shock to the man whose eyes moved over it. It read: 

Major,

I hope this letter has finally found its way to you and that you are well. I didn’t know how to reach you direct, so I looked up Mr. and Mrs. Charles Emerson Winchester II. Your parents are swell folks! 

When they heard who I was, they right away wanted to hear about your time in the OR. I guess you aren’t one for war stories. I hope you don’t mind, but I told them you were basically a hero in white. I left out the blood-spattered part because parents don’t need to hear that. It would just scare them, even though it’s all over and done with now. I told them you were our go-to guy for hearts and lungs. 

They said you are back at Mass. General after a stint as an instructor at Johns Hopkins. I hope it’s all you wished for. I’ve tried out several paths since coming home, but I haven’t found my true calling yet. Unfortunately, when I talked to your parents, they confirmed the thing I was worried about, the thing this whole letter is about, really. 

Major, I know that what happened to those Chinese musicians made music painful for you. What you might not know is that I stayed in Korea longer than the rest of the 4077th, helping Father Mulcahy send orphans to the States. Especially mixed-race little girls. Remember that cutie we left with the monks? 

Well, those kiddos took up my days, but my evenings were really quiet, so I did some investigating. It wasn’t easy. The Chinese thought I was a spy. Our guys had their hands full looking for MIAs. I even put in a call to Iowa to get some tips from Radar. 

Anyway, you’re holding the end result. The pages that come after this one have everything I found out about those five guys. Check it out, Major. They wouldn’t have wanted you to give up the symphony.

Wishing you the best,

Max


	2. Symphony for the spirits of the dead

After receiving the surprising packet postmarked Toledo, Ohio, Charles Emerson Winchester III took the next two days off, something he hadn’t done since his return to the States. Rumors rippled in his wake, but Charles paid them little heed. It was true that surgery was a life and death matter, but just this once he was happy to relinquish his scalpel. 

Charles spent the first of his free days at his boyhood home in his former bedroom, raiding his album collection. From there, he repaired to Boston’s three finest purveyors of recordings; by day’s end his satchel was weighted down with vinyl. 

On the second day, he replaced the diamond needle in his record player and dusted each component until it gleamed. For hours thereafter, he placed record after record on the platter, listening to the favorite songs of five Chinese musicians killed in the Korean War. 

He read and reread Klinger’s words and wept.


	3. I kissed the envelope closed

The letter that came in response to Klinger’s act of kindness did indeed come from a Winchester— just not the one he had expected. Written on heavy, expensive stationary, the script gamboled like a deer, its light-footed letters attesting to the writer’s lighthearted nature.

Dear Mr. Klinger, it began,

I hope you don’t find me too awfully forward writing to you this way, especially since we’ve never actually met. Would you be sweet enough to accept a postage stamp for a handshake and the kiss I sealed this envelope with as a kiss hello? I hope so!

You see, it was painful seeing my brother’s empty seat at the symphony during the war, but, as you can imagine, there were a great many empty seats then. When he returned and failed to appear in his accustomed place, my heart broke and I could barely hear the instruments over the sound of my own quiet grief.

Months passed and father refused to sell off Charles’ seat or even lend his ticket. “War changes a man, pet,” he told me, like I was a girl of seven. Months became years. Each week, I entered the concert hall that has always served as my brother’s church, trying not to hope too hard, looking for him in every figure in a suit. Every week I fell back into my seat, crushed (and Mum does not easily tolerate poor posture, I may well tell you!)

Fortunes changed just a few hours ago! (I’m writing to you under a moon with a Cheshire grin as big as my own!) During intermission, there was big brother Charles, cognac in hand, soft smile showing that the music still lived in him even as the players were at pause. I screamed in delight so loudly that the chandeliers above us seemed to scream back and the ushers looked up nervously, afraid crystal was about to rain down on our heads!! (Mum was _quite_ scandalized!)

Charles had bought a separate seat, of course. He couldn’t have imagined that daddy had kept his. I dragged him back to our spot, almost afraid to let go. “See?” Daddy said to me when we were back in our car. “I told you he would recover and return to being properly sociable.” He thinks _time_ is what got Charles back in range of strings- but I know my own brother.

I called Charles tonight and I badgered him into spilling the whole thing. (I’m pleased I haven’t lost my little sisterly wiles!) He told me what you had done for him! You sweet, dear man! Thank you!

And though I don’t know you, you dear, dear thing, I do think I know _why_ you did it. If I am right, please use the enclosed ticket to transport your sweet self to 1137 Cramblegate South Shore, Boston. My little sister’s intuition tells me you won’t be disappointed. See the enclosed sketch for a suggestion of what to wear (not intuition this time. I caught him admiring just such an item and needled him into telling me who he would buy it for if he could. Guess who?). I have also enclosed a bit of pin money for the silk.

I hope you’ll accept the ticket and enclosed as small tokens of my gratitude until I see you face to face and can give you an enormous hug.

May your seams be ever straight,

Honoria


	4. Outside your door, inside your heart

A few weeks later (good sewing took time), Maxwell Q. Klinger stood before a stately home, porch boards creaking underfoot to announce his arrival. Above him, the awning played host to a riot of honeysuckle, moon-blue wisteria, chocolate flower, Boston ivy, and morning glory. The mingled scents drifted down and danced attendance on him.

When the door opened his heart proved a very versatile organ indeed when it simultaneously sought to leap up his throat _and_ elevator fall to his feet. Even with the assurance conveyed by Honoria’s letter, Klinger was taking a big risk. Hat in hand, he greeted the man he’d said farewell to nearly three years before, but who he hadn’t forgotten for three minutes strung together.

“Max? What? How?” Charles’ smile was real; it reached up to and brightened his eyes.

“Hi. I, uh, I hope you don’t mind, Major.”

“Of course not. Of course not. Come in.”

Inside, the two former comrades in arms exchanged pleasantries for a moment - discussing where their comrades were now and what they were doing- but the suspense was too much for Klinger. “Major, it was a long trip. Do you mind if I freshen up a bit?”

Charles obligingly showed him the way and then retreated to the parlor for a cognac. Without even a mirror for confirmation, he knew his cheeks had taken on a summer-strawberry glow. His hands were shaking.

When Klinger returned, the short-stemmed crystal slid from those trembling hands; the shards glittered wetly on the floor.

The dress Klinger now wore was neither grey nor purple nor mineral blue, but some glacial, perfect color that blended aspects of each, shifting and shining like the surface of the sea.

Cut high in the front, it lengthened at the sides and back to flow and swish like a cape. Moonstones belted it around that impossibly narrow waist.

“Klinger, it’s ravishing.”

Besides being a gourmand, an oenophile, and a connoisseur of fine music, Charles always chose his words with care. Klinger knew this. He also knew that “ravishing” had the word “ravish” in it. Charles clarified his intentions to do just that when he came forward, dropped to his knees, swept the hem of the dress back a bit and pressed his mouth to Klinger’s thigh. While kneeling, he learned that his position offered certain visual advantages. “Lace?”

“Only the best for you,” Klinger promised. He didn’t get to say anything else. Charles stood, swept him up, performed something very like a dance step, and deposited them both on a chaise. Klinger found himself straddling Charles’ hips, the skirt of his dress tented over both of them.

Though it was Charles who saw them through the first movements of their personal symphony, it was Klinger’s clever fingers - skilled at shooting dice, connecting communications wires for their CO, hot wiring the occasional get-away jeep, and sewing on both sequins and seed pearls - that worked their determined way between them. He opened Charles’ pants without preamble, moved the delicate webbing of his lace underwear aside and pressed against him. The sheer heat of it made Klinger gasp; beneath him, Charles made a choking sound.

“Major...”

“Charles, please. I think we’ve transcended the formalities, Max.”

“Charles, you should know I’ve never...with a guy, I mean…”

It should have come as a surprise but did not. Hadn’t he always sensed it? A vulnerability- even an innocence?

“Nor have I,” he assured the trembling man. “We’ll have to figure it out together.”

Klinger nodded his trust in him, and Charles knew it was his turn to put his fingers to good use, easing the pads of his fingers just under the band of the lacy concoction Klinger had chosen just for him. He knew that the gauzy stuff - Shetland lace by the feel - had to be constricting, almost painful, and he felt flattered that Klinger would endure such discomfort - and so intimately placed! - in the name of his pleasure. He also wanted it off _now_ so that he could feel Klinger completely.

When he joined them, heat to heat, Klinger pitched forward with a cry and made him a spot between his thighs. Charles thrust there as Klinger rocked against him. With the hand not anchoring Klinger, he rustled beneath the watered silk to feel Klinger’s warmth, delighting in the muscles in his chest, the sharp edge of a hip. He kissed and sucked at the corporal’s neck; the gems wound through his dark hair glittered and winked.

“Shall I take it from the sweat shining in the hollow of your throat that we’ve figure out something that pleases us both?”

Klinger wondered how he could sound so cool. “I thought I made that pretty clear with all the begging,” he replied.

His answer, though breathless and more than a little sardonic, filled Charles with a species of glee he would not easily have admitted to; he was pleasing him! But he wanted more. Only a perfect crescendo would do. Making the fingers of his right hand into a tight arch, he held Klinger tight against him and stroked.

When the end came, the corporal nearly bent in half and kicked quite out of his heels. Klinger’s cry of release, the clatter of the shoes hitting the floor, and Charles’ pleased laughter mingled together.

When Klinger surfaced, dark eyes soft and unfocused, he was purely woozy on joy until he realized that his fluids were coating the major’s thighs, then he looked stricken. Charles knew why. Klinger had only ever seen him as fastidious - snobbish, even - as he sought to armor himself against the filth, horror, and heartbreak of Korea. To reassure him, he drew him down and kissed him. Charles hadn’t been sure of everything he’d done thus far in their adventure, but he was a confident kisser. When Klinger parted his lips for a breath, his tongue darted inside. Klinger’s eyes closed and his head went back, offering everything. Charles lifted him and placed him on a decorative table. Knowing it was expensive, Klinger held back a grin at the thought that its craftsman had probably imagined it holding potted orchids or statuettes - not the now-heavily-fondled buttocks of a former corporal in a ball gown.

“Can you position your legs like you did before?” Charles asked. He knew all the names for the position - hadn’t he attended boarding school? - but he wasn’t going to demean these sweet moments either with clinical references or those boys-at-play terms.

Klinger was quick to comply and Charles sank into him with a sigh, burying his head in his neck.

“Maxwell, you cannot dream...” The near-frantic action he was engaged in broke up the words; the passion in them kept Klinger’s eyes riveted on his face. “Number of times I saw you sashaying away in the OR... wanted to do just this...”

Wonder gentled the former sergeant’s features. “Major you never said a word! Never gave a single sign!”

“...surely you can... understand... the army with its regulations... living among those conditions... I didn’t dare...” It was a convoluted way of admitting to cowardice. “In the OR, the patients... those boys ... they’d tease you, reach out to pinch you. I wanted to bat their clumsy hands away.... so jealous...”

“Oh, Major, I wish you had!”

The yearning in his voice made Charles look up. “What would you have done?”

Scheming came as easily to Klinger as breathing. “On those night shifts, I was the only one with a key to the supply room.”

Charles slowed his motions to listen, to allow the words to stoke him.

“I would have said we were out of something important, made you come with me to look.”

Charles was enjoying the fantasy. “In your nurse’s uniform?” he asked hopefully.

“For you, Major? Of course!”

“And once in the supply room?”

“Oh, you’d notice the penicillin or morphine right away and demand to know what I was playing at.” He gave a teasing and reasonably good imitation of the wartime Charles Emerson Winchester III, circa 52.

“And you’d just look at me, eyes dark, until I had to come closer and kiss you...”

“Dizzy,” Klinger finished for him. “Your tongue could teach circus tricks! And you’d press up against me and your leg would slip between my legs...”

Charles made a soft, hungry sound, rhythm changing. “I’d push them apart.”

“Line us up like we are now,”

“Yes, yes,”

“And you’d let me feel you coming for me wouldn’t you, Major? Please?”

It was the “please,” Charles would remember later that sent him crashing through every barrier to leave them wet with his release, clinging stickily together as he trembled and Klinger soothed him, making slow circles across the muscles of his back.

Charles closed his eyes and tried to remember each moment, each time the tempo ratcheted up; he never wanted to forget this song. Then he felt Klinger shivering and felt like Lear fighting with the heavens while the poor Fool endured their outburst, sodden and quaking at the increasing nearness of the lightning. “You’re cold.” He kissed the dark locks where no strand of grey had dared appear in their years apart, tasted the salt of sweat, breathed in Klinger’s scent; it contained hints he might dedicate a lifetime to parsing: jasmine, rosewater, blood orange heated and candied in honey. “Come on, let me get you warm.”


	5. Dreams of green satin

To Klinger’s surprise, the surgeon yet possessed strength enough to gently lift him down and set him on his feet before leading him deeper into the great house. “You’ll like this,” Charles promised.

He was right.

“Wow, Charles, I knew you were rich, but sheesh!”

The aristocrat laughed- and then laughed again to be _naked_ and laughing. _Has joy been absent so long from my life that it’s arrival feels so startling? So alien_? “This isn’t one of my caprices, dear-heart. The man who built this house in the last century had some very European ideals about the sexes bathing together, so he built himself a veritable lagoon. The walls are just as strange. He had them built out of the hulls of decommissioned or damaged whaling ships. They’re fully six inches thick. When the storms come, I lose electricity fast enough, but I feel quite safe. We’ll have to have a hurricane party when next the winds blow.”

Hope kindled Klinger’s eyes. His next words were very soft. “You want there to be a next time, Charles? You want me to come back?”

Charles caught at the now-ragged edge of his dress to draw him near. When he was close enough, he tangled their fingers for good measure. “My dear one, how could you possibly think otherwise?” He gestured back toward the room from which they had come. “Did not my every touch convey the nights I’ve longed to hold you in my arms? If not, I will be pleased to try again once you give me time to rally.”

Klinger squirmed a bit, more bashful than Charles has ever seen him. “No, it’s not that. You were wonderful.” His eyes clenched shut as if against too strong a light. When he spoke, Charles was flattered to realize that he was feeling the fierce effects of a very recent memory. “The way you lifted me over you like that... I never knew I wanted to be held that way, but you sure did. It was like a dance, like,”

“Music,” Charles supplied. “Which is only fitting, considering that you have restored music to my life. But if you had such evidence of my feelings, how can you question my desire to hold you again?”

Klinger made a vague gesture. “You’re a Winchester. You’re a prominent Boston citizen.”

_Bostonian_ , Charles mentally corrected, but allowed him to continue.

“You’re a surgeon. Rich. I haven’t even figured out what I want to do with myself yet. I guess I just don’t feel like I have a lot to offer you, Major.”

Very few individuals could manage sternness or dignity in the nude, but Charles made up one of their number. He straightened, eyes blazing up. “Maxwell Klinger, you are a bold, beautiful man with a generous soul, a quick mind, and a figure made for fashion. I am, as you said, a Winchester. Don’t you think I know quality when I see it?” A small smirk rose to play about his mouth. “To say nothing of recognizing it when my tongue is buried in the sweetness of its mouth?”

Klinger blushed, but found no argument to mount. Satisfied, Charles entered the slate bathing pool, sighing as the pleasing heat loosened his muscles. Heated water burbled from a dozen faucets and was circulated by a series of jets. Klinger disentangled himself from his dress. Charles swam to the pool’s edge to twine the discarded fabric in his fingers.

“I owe you a new dress, it seems.”

Klinger’s grin was 200 watts if it was one. “I, uh, was surprised that it got you so riled. You don’t have to worry about replacing it though, honest. I’m good with a sewing needle.” With a characteristic wink, he entered the pool and ducked beneath the surface; droplets shined on his long eyelashes and in the hollow of his throat.

When he came back up, Charles was blushing. “I confess, I, too, was taken a bit aback at my own enthusiasm. May I ask what made you choose that particular piece from your wardrobe?”

Klinger had olive skin; under it, desert roses unfurled their dusky petals. “I, uh, well I hope you won’t be offended, but I had a little help.”

Charles could have told him that it was nearly impossible to be offended with someone who looked as lithe, dark, and playful as a river otter in the warm water, especially when he still wore waterfall earrings and had gems (albeit paste ones) in his hair.

“Oh?” he asked pleasantly.

“After I sent you the names of those songs and the info I had found out about those guys, your sister wrote to me. She told me that if I felt the way she thought I did, I should take a chance and come see you. She included a sketch of that dress. She said that she saw you admiring it when the two of you were going somewhere.”

Charles smiled at the memory. “Indeed. She asked me what made me look so pleased and I told her I knew someone that dress would suit perfectly, though I wouldn’t dare presume to shop for him.”

Klinger grinned for all he was worth. “For the record, if a little bit of silk and lace is going to get me that kind of action, you’re free to presume away!” He liked the way the ribbing made Charles color up again. “She said you tried to play it off - one of your funny war stories, but she knew better.”

“Honoria has always been able to read me much too well,” Charles admitted - but not without a measure of fondness. “Even in the cradle she had wise eyes.”

“I can’t speak for her eyes,” Klinger said, “But she sure loves her big brother.” He looked down, suddenly shy. “So do I.”

Charles grabbed him in a slippery bear hug and said just above the volume of the water gurgling from golden spigots and filtering silver-throated through copper pipes, “He loves the two of you very, very much.”

***

When they were clean, Charles wrapped his guest in a towel of Turkish cotton. Klinger admired the texture through touch and wondered if the very rich had learned to mingle the genes of clouds and sheep.

Newly dried, he followed Charles to the second floor to a grand four poster bed of lacquered wood. He groaned as his shoulders met the mattress. “If I’d have had a bed like this in Korea, I never would have tried to get out of the army!”

Charles laughed and turned down the lamp. He nuzzled into Klinger’s shoulder. “Speaking of Korea, there were rumors about a green satin dress.”

Klinger’s voice was already drowsy. “Trumpet hem with the dagger shoulders? I wore my ankle strap heels with that. A heartbreaker for sure.”

“I never got to see it. Is there any chance it might appear on a return engagement?”

“It will be my pleasure, Major.”

Warm laughter ruffled his hair. “It certainly will. And mine.”


	6. The morning after

It had been a very long time since Charles Emerson Winchester III had slept beside anyone, to say nothing of doing so nude on Egyptian cotton sheets of a thread count high enough to rival the bank balance of his smaller bank accounts. He reveled in Klinger’s warmth - the man really did seem to carry a bit of the desert in him somewhere, somehow - and dozed in contented reverie, reliving the frolics of the past day. Such reminiscing came at a cost, however; as he mentally conjured each moan, a physical response was building between his legs.

Klinger noticed and stirred, propping himself on an elbow to look over his shoulder and say, “Good morning — to both of you.”

“Just, ah, remembering some of yesterday’s highlights.”

Klinger surprised him with a tender kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Why shouldn’t you? On the other hand, why look back when you can make new memories?”

Charles saw him wink, but he had no idea how Klinger went from spooned against him to kneeling _there_ dampening his fingers with his tongue before stroking him into full bloom and _taking him into his mouth._ “Oh, God. Oh. Max.”

Privately, Max thought he very much liked being incorporated into morning prayers this way, but rather than waste his voice on wisecracks, he made sounds of encouragement and attempted to find the depth, speed, and technique that would win him more verbalizing.

For his part, Charles could barely believe how good it felt to be enclosed in wet, tight heat. He wanted to be jealous - where had Klinger picked up the sinful skill he was displaying? - but the sensation was too perfect to allow for anything but surrender.

Well, surrender and apogee. The latter was fast approaching and he tried to warn Klinger in case he wanted to shift from using his mouth to using his hands, but he just responded with renewed enthusiasm, beckoning him on with flashing eyes and increased vigor. When Charles saw the muscles in his throat contract as he swallowed, he felt faint.

When he came back to himself, they were shoulder to shoulder and Klinger was breathing hard from his exertions. _I am become breathtaking_ , Charles thought, driven to poetry by the mere rise and fall of that flat chest, its black curls like so much scribbled poetry, _Taking his breath even as he steals mine, unknowing_. It was a very pleasurable sort of compatibility and he drew the slighter man into his arms, positioning Klinger so that he sat between his legs, head on his shoulder.

He trailed his long fingers - source of pride and livelihood- over his naked thighs. “May I?”

“You have to ask?” It came out almost as a whine.

He began slow, fingers licking up from beneath like flames. Klinger ground down on him, seeking deeper contact even as Charles changed the game to run a single fingertip around the delicate hood, before tracing the blood-thick veins making proud ridges on his length.

“Is this some kind of secret thing they teach you in med school?” Klinger asked when Charles had pushed him nearly over the edge before backing down and beginning again.

The chuckle that began in Charles’ chest moved through Klinger’s back to vibrate the most intimate parts of him. “No.” The “o” sound was regal, drawn out and fond - quintessential Charles. “Though medical students have been known to search for sexual holy grails alongside new cures. We do learn erogenous zones, of course.” He paused to visit one, teasing each swollen sac with a touch so light it wouldn’t have been registered by a cat’s whisker or by a spider’s strands. “But what you’re experiencing is, I think, simply a product of what I have observed about you and am now putting to use.”

He kissed the spot just under and behind his ear. “I know, for instance, that you’re quite sensitive here.” His tongue flicked out, traced the ridge of his ear. His fingers, meanwhile, pried his thighs just a little farther apart. “I know, too, that you like to be held open. It leaves you vulnerable, of course, but you’re not afraid with me.” Klinger whimpered, a dove-like sound.

“I have even noticed that in these intimate moments of ours, you sometimes slip into calling me major.” He took a single digit into his mouth, wetted it and eased it inside, patiently overcoming a quivering resistance. “This suggests that you may take some pleasure from the disparity in our ranks. Tell me, would you obey a direct order, Corporal Klinger?”

The finger inside of him thrust in and out, teasing. It took everything he had to shift even the smallest part of his concentration away from it. “M-major?” He asked, uncertain.

Charles made a satisfied sound. Klinger was a tiny bit scared, but he was thrilled and eager, too. A clear bead glistened over his slit. “I order you to give it up for me, Corporal.”

A full body shudder wracked the slighter man. “Sir?”

“You heard me, man. As your superior officer,” he wrapped his fingers tight around him, stroked, “I order you to come for me - _right now_.”

Klinger’s hips snapped forward; Charles exulted in his almost sobbing breaths, pumped him through the aftershocks and held him tight as the violet haze cleared from his mind. Then he kissed the top of his head and said, voice full with satisfaction, “And a very good morning to you. I take it you won’t be wanting coffee?”

Klinger just moaned.


	7. Parting

Klinger wasn’t surprised to find out that Charles could cook, but it touched him to be waited on by a man who had been attended by servants as a boy.

When the table was cleared - Klinger washed, Charles dried - the surgeon took his houseguest to the beach. “You know the temperate Pacific, of course,” he said as they strode paths of white stone and crushed oysters, “But the cool, blue eye of the Atlantic is something else to gaze into.”

So, they gazed together, but Klinger didn’t feel small. Instead, he smiled at the lacy patterns the foam made around his toes - how like the bunched lace of his costume left on Charles’ floor! - and thought that Charles carried something of that Atlantic current in his eyes, bright and dark at once.

By midday, the time had come to part. Charles was due at the hospital for rounds that evening and Klinger had missed all the work he dared to gamble with his heart.

“I’m done at 3 in the morning. As I return home, I shall have to talk myself out of turning for the train station and buying a ticket for Toledo,” Charles told him, stroking his cheek. 

The skin at the corners of Klinger’s eyes crinkled. “I don’t know if it’s a posh enough town for you, Major, but I’d welcome you with open arms.” He winked. “And other things.”

Charles sighed. “All my dreams will be of green satin until we meet again.”

Klinger rose up on his toes to kiss his forehead. “Just don’t give up on your records again, okay?”

Charles assured him there would be a song in his heart.


	8. Long distance

Charles did not journey to Toledo that night, but he called the next one.

“Major! What are you doing on the line? It’s long distance!”

Charles swelled with happiness at the sound of Klinger's voice but said dryly, “I’m a top surgeon in one of the finest hospitals in the world, Klinger. I can afford the call.” His tone changed, gentled. “I wanted to make sure you had arrived home safely.”

“Sure thing, Major. Toledo always offers a kind welcome to her sons! Thank you for the visit. It was... well, you know how it was.” His tone now matched that of his new-won lover.

“Yes, on that note, I find that I really must replace this bed. It’s much too big now.”

“If you get rid of that bed, I’ll kill you.”

Charles laughed at his sincerity; Klinger loved that mattress. “Then it seems we must reach some kind of a compromise.”

Klinger sighed. “I have to work, Major.”

Charles could have told him that he did not, in fact, have to do anything of the kind. He could support both of them in perpetuity with ease - and Klinger’s extended family, too. But Klinger had a man’s pride and Charles had no intention of wounding him or making him feel less than. He would have to hope he could find a way to bring Klinger to Boston - a way that included good fulfilling work... which, preferably, left plenty of open hours for things far more pleasurable than toil.

Sensing an impasse, Klinger asked what music he had been listening to. Unbeknownst to Charles he had engaged a local piano tuner to teach him a bit about classical music. It didn’t reach the equivalent of a music appreciation class, but it would give him some common ground with his beloved. Titles scratched down in Klinger scrawl, he asked after the Winchester family who he always imagined looking like Sargent’s painting of the ninth duke of Marlborough and his family. (Charles would have laughed himself into paroxysms if he had known).

“Winchester’s don’t change, Klinger. They are cathedrals, ancient trees deep-rooted, or as our critics prefer, cockroaches who survive all to scuttle back into the light.”

“Huh, maybe our families aren’t so different, Major. I’m sure we’ve had that old chestnut lobbed our way too!”

“Honoria, of course, remains eager to meet you. She’s writing quite the romance in her girlish mind, I think. She wants to know the color of your eyes, your height - all those sorts of things.”

“She probably wants to make sure our wardrobes won’t clash when we’re finally in the same room.”

“Yes, about that. I was thinking I could have you both for lunch.” He dangled a date, trying hard not too hope too much.

Klinger agreed to the date but refused the offer of a train ticket. “I may not be a top surgeon, but I can pay my own way,” he insisted. “Now, unless they’ve rotated your shifts on you, you really ought to get some rest.”

Charles pouted a bit. “Any suggestions on how I might go about decreasing the size of this bed?”

“Do what I do - imagine me in it!”


	9. The golden glow of pollen

As it turned out, Charles did not have to wait seven long weeks for the return of Corporal Klinger. (Considering his growing proclivity for entering fabric stores to gaze upon and caress bolts of cloth, this was probably all to the best). In the interim, a letter arrived inviting the native son of Toledo to New York for an interview. The writer, an associate to Charles James, had seen a portfolio of his fashion designs and wished to consider him as a designer.

Klinger couldn’t figure out how his designs had made their way from Toledo to New York, though he had his suspicions, but he could figure out a map. A few days a week in New York was a lot closer to Boston than ten hour a day shifts in Toledo. And no matter how the interview went, he planned to stop off in Boston.

***

This time when the door flew open, Klinger flew into a pair of very strong and welcoming arms.

“The green satin?” Charles asked by way of greeting.

“In my bag.” He winked. “Wait ‘til you see the stockings I found to wear with it.”

“I look forward to dropping them one by one to the floor.”

They passed inside and passed a pleasant night.

***

The next day, Klinger met Honoria for the first time. She made good on her word; pixie-faced and tiny, she still managed to enfold him in an hug so thorough that it threatened the fragile veil on her hat and the bones of his ribs.

She then proceeded to flit around her brother’s new boyfriend, exclaiming over his tiny waist, his bright eyes, his gentleness. Usually such treatment would have made Klinger feel like a spectacle rather than a person, but Honoria’s admiration was too genuine for that.

“He’s much too good for you, Charles,” she said at last with a gypsy grin that had to be a throwback to some disreputable vine on the family tree.

Charles agreed and toasted his two favorite people with a Bellini. The taste of chilled and sugared peaches mingled with the sight of the two smiling faces he loved best. They had chosen to do lunch al fresco and unbeknownst to either Klinger or Honoria, the flowers above were dropping golden grains of pollen onto their shoulders. They glowed there - accenting the beaten copper bodice of Honoria’s day gown and leaving streaks of cosmic gold across Klinger’s halter straps. He tried to hold on to every detail; maybe Colonel Potter could paint it for him: the bubblegum balls of color on Klinger’s black skirt, the brassy green of Honoria’s eye shadow, the glow of alcohol in glass and egg yolks on white China. He was enamored of every color, delighted by the flash of teeth in a grin, the way light and shade touched their features as the morning wore on. Halfway through, he surprised himself by breaking off a few stems and making both his sister and his lover crowns of flowers.

***

Klinger did not divulge the reason for his trip to New York. He didn’t want to get Charles’ hopes up if it was all for naught and he was pretty sure Charles already knew. So he kept mum that night, only seeking the surgeon’s approval on his suit before leaving.

“Important meeting for, ah, my Uncle Abdul,” Klinger fibbed. “I want to look successful.”

“You shine,” Charles assured him. “I’ll see you again tonight?”

“As much of me as you want to see!”


	10. Amends for spilled cognac

When Klinger had left for the train station, Charles slumped into the chair beside the record player. His soul was trembling within him as it sometimes did at a symphony or an opera, overtaken by emotion and pleasure-drowned.

He loved Klinger. After years of loneliness and a few, tentative hopeful beginnings he had the real thing. He had never been more happily exhausted in his life. As he sat in his favorite chair his body still contained small, pleasant aches - reminders of last night’s acrobatics. A smile surged for his eyes. As a surgeon, he knew that everything Klinger was doing for his heart was good for him; he was, however, a bit surprised he could survive it!

When he emerged from this morning reverie, Charles noticed a package beside the fireplace. He lifted the cardboard box gently and found it addressed to “the only officer whose commands I look forward to.” He smiled and tore away the tape to lift the flaps and discover... glass.

His hands knew the heft of the bottle and the slosh of what fools would call amber but which he knew to be the color of downed maple leaves under cold rain within. He knew the town from which it had been imported. He knew the way the taste of oak would give way to clove, the way the clove’s sharpness would be tamed by vanilla, the finish that was candied fruit dusted with cinnamon. Klinger, it seemed, loved him, too.

Major, the note inside began,

On my first visit, I caused you to break one of your glasses.

“A glass is a small sacrifice to make at the foot of great beauty,” Charles found himself answering aloud.

I had to wait until I could find something equally fancy to replace it. I know it’s not a perfect match but maybe you won’t mind if I tell you how hard it makes me to see you hold a glass to your lips and close your eyes because its so good. It makes me wish I was the stuff in the glass!

The box wobbled as his knees did and Charles had to sit it down.

Radar helped me do my research, the letter went on. It turns out he always had to order the booze when big time brass came to camp. He assured me this is about as fancy as it comes (at least, as fancy as my pocketbook can manage). Drink it in good health.

Love you more than the number of sips in this bottle,

Max


	11. Sharing a drink

Maxwell returned from his journey to New York looking, as he would have put it, ridden hard and put away wet. From the rumpled, sweat-stained look of him, Charles surmised that Uncle Abdul’s colleagues weren’t the sort that made negotiations easy. Klinger expected the surgeon to chide him for not taking him up on his offer of a first-class ticket; his accommodations hadn’t contributed anything positive to his current state, that was for sure. Charles was uncharacteristically silent and as Klinger followed him into the parlor, he realized the house was also unusually dim. A few candles cast irregular splashes of radiance on the polished wood in the parlor. A single glass of cognac sat on the table.

As he positioned himself beside it, Charles took on an almost panther-like grace: regal, strong, superior. Klinger couldn’t keep his eyes off of him.

“I found your gift.”

Klinger help up a hand. “If you’re going to say it was too much, I don’t want to hear it, Major.”

“Nothing of the kind. I’m very grateful. Share with me?”

Cognac wasn’t really Klinger’s thing, but if any day had ever warranted a drink, it was this one. “Sure thing, Major, but there’s only one glass.”

Something changed inside of those Atlantic eyes, grew darker. “Your note indicated that you wanted to be the thing I got drunk on,” he reminded him.

The phrasing stopped him in his tracks, left him dumb with sheer want. Charles read him, though, – and read him rightly – when he came forward and loosened his tie, when he undid the first few buttons to expose his collarbone. Dipping his long fingers into the crystal, he painted a path across his chest and up his throat. His mouth followed.

Klinger’s taste and scent merged with the scent and taste of the liquor to make something new, a potent potion that reduced Charles to making half-mad sounds of pleasure as he took up each drop. His enthusiastic lips left raised, red marks where they had traveled and Klinger writhed under this “tasting,” backing up until his legs met the table. (It was find a support or slide to the floor, he would later confide). Charles just grinned and helped him up. What was the point of owning a Georgian table of solid flame mahogany that could probably support a dance troupe if you didn’t _use_ it occasionally?

Charles liked just how _undone_ his one and only looked. He hadn’t even gotten to his lips yet.

Deciding to save that particular treat, he opened Klinger’s shirt further. Father Mulcahy never would have approved, but Charles was thinking of that line about a goblet from “The Song of Solomon.” So inspired, he anointed Klinger’s chest and belly with liquor, undoing his pants to do the same to his hips. Klinger shuddered, lashes beating hard against his cheeks.

“Shh, shh,” Charles murmured from between his thighs. “You needn’t thrash, dear-heart. I’ll get you there.”

“Tease,” Klinger shot back weakly.

Charles just chuckled. “I would be careful with _that_ accusation. Do you know how many checkpoints I had to walk swiftly away from because of the outfits you had dreamed up?”

Klinger lost himself for a moment, imagining his way back to those dark nights – usually cold – when he carried a gun in his hand and walked in high heels, demanding the password from shadowy figures hurrying off to assignations (Houlihan, Hawkeye, a bevy of others whose names he doesn’t remember), emergencies (Potter) or a late night snack (Radar). He imagined asking Charles for the word of the day. The surgeon would have come right up to him, looking so superior, so smug. “You have to give me the password, Major,” he would have said. Charles would have reached beneath his skirt and squeezed – his grip firm, knowing. “Make me.”

“I didn’t know!” he protested. “You can’t tease someone if you don’t know they’re interested!”

“Oh, I don’t know. You managed well enough.” He had removed most of Klinger’s clothing at this point and had bowed his head to “drink” from a number of sweet spots, leaving Klinger hot, sticky, and nearly incoherent.

Klinger was momentarily distracted from his next maneuver; Charles supposed anyone would have been distracted. The head of Klinger’s hitherto neglected sex was in his mouth, being laved and caressed and divested of cognac by an eager tongue.

While he worked him over, his fingers, glistening with the autumnal tint of fine liquor, ventured lower still. It wasn’t until those fingers were replaced by his tongue that Klinger scooted backward in a rapid retreat. He wore a very worried expression.

When he stilled, Charles just looked up at him with a smile that was fond and amused. “Maxwell, I am a surgeon. Do you really think there is any part of you, inside or out, that could shock or embarrass _me_?”

Klinger seemed to consider this. “I just didn’t want you to be, you know, disgusted.”

Charles reached for his hand, took it, squeezed warmth into his fingers. “With you, Max? Impossible, I assure you. However,” and here he lifted a questioning brow. “If you are uncomfortable or frightened in even the slightest, I will, of course, desist.”

Klinger thought about it. It was hard to be frightened, looking into that gentle face. As he considered, Charles admired the way the golden light played in his dark hair, the way it danced along his lashes. “Okay,” he said at last. “But how can you be so sure about it? Is this another one of those secret med school things?”

Charles sipped at his cognac, ignoring the jest. “I can be so sure because I fantasized about putting this liquor to just this use all afternoon. And in not one of my myriad fantasies did you say stop.” He lifted his chin, traced his smile-ready mouth. “Not even once.”

It turned out that he was right.

Klinger said a lot of things when Charles held him open and fucked him with his tongue - some of them incomprehensible to the Major who had not grown up in Toledo’s pool halls - but not one of them was stop, or even slow down. By the end he was writhing and moaning so much that Charles was certain he was about to experience an orgasm of sympathy - untouched, fully dressed, and somehow brought to climax by the very strong lungs of his Lebanese American cognac-flavored treat.

It ended up taking a little bit more than that. He _did_ get to get undressed, at least, and Klinger, though wrung out as a ragdoll, rallied to more than repay him every way he knew how. Afterward, they took their syrup-sticky pelts to the darkened beach and let the salt of the tide scrape them clean.

“Can’t say I would have ever believed it if anyone told me you were one for naked, moonlit swims, Major,” Klinger teased when they were back among the candles.

Charles toweled out his hair (what there was of it) and confessed, “I, ah, needed to clear my head. I am every inch the match for a cognac or two. But a cognac and _you_... that combination could undo a better man than me.”

“You really did get drunk!?”

“Among other things.” What he didn’t add was that if Klinger had been in costume as well as in full voice, he probably would not have been able to walk to the water. _Imagine a Winchester thanking heaven for off the rack suits_! He surprised himself by continuing, “Besides, I like to see you by the sea.”

He blew out the candles and they climbed the stairs. In bed, Charles went on. “You’ve changed the landscape that I love so much. When you’re gone, I think of every place I want to share with you. Every place I want to have you. You’re smiling? You don’t think I’m... over amorous?”

He sounded unexpectedly timid and it both charmed and tickled Klinger. “Charles, I’m glad you want me. And you know I’m yours - anywhere. Any costume.”

Cognac lightning up little-visited private attics, Charles felt brave enough to ask, “Even, ah, a bit of role playing perhaps?”

Klinger leaned over on an elbow. “What do you mean?”

“I, ah, never got to pick you up at Rosie’s bar. I always wanted to ask, and I’d sit there, nursing my drink, and lose my nerve.”

Klinger’s eyes sparkled in the low light. “Mmm... Major, I really wish I had known. I would have fallen right at your feet.”

“Right into my arms?”

“Into your bed.”

“Well, then all has ended as it should.”


	12. Scribbling through the symphony

At the next show Charles and Honoria exchanged notes, written on scraps of their programs, like children. In reply to a spidery bit of needling (complete with enclosure) Charles found himself writing:

Dear sister,  
  


A Winchester does not kiss and tell, so I will not humor you by circling the obscene stick figures to indicate in which acts I have engaged. I will say, however, that to the best of my knowledge the fifth from the left is physically impossible.

As for being besotted, I confess, and I’m glad you think it looks good on me. I do not deserve you or your ardent support, but I’m not sure I could endure the world without you. As for the longing looks you imagine I am receiving in my newly minted state (un-bachelorhood?) I think you will find those have more to do with the title of doctor and the attendant pay and less to do with any beauty you imagine I contain.

C

She turned the program over to reply.

Dear Covert Undersigned,

Say whatever you want on the printed page, Charlie-love, you’re glowing and I’m not the only one with eyes to see it!

If you will not humor my artistic insinuations (I thought I had a very Athenian vase thing going; who said it was useless to classically educate a girl again?) at least tell me about your happy (modest) hours. Do you play piano for him? Have you invited him to dance? Honestly, Charles why have a ballroom, else? I think our Max could wear a silver flame gown to great aplomb.

Finally, tell me about over there. When did you know? Was it love at first sight?

P.S. If you won’t tell me anything good, I’m writing Max direct. I already know the address.

The forthcoming reply came quickly.

Dear anything-but-covert correspondent,

I believe it was our father who discouraged the expurgated Classics and I who acted as Athena in male form, so no more frieze scenes, please? They make me blush. Of course, if father saw these missives, he would have a coronary, so perhaps blushing is light penance.

I have seen “our Max,” as you call him, only a few times, so there is much we have not done. (N.b. That is not an admission to being overly immodest, though I suspect you will read it as such). I do not know what he would say to either my playing or dancing, but I will find out and report back. I agree about the gown. White gloves, do you think?

I hate to disappoint you in your enthusiastic creation of a storybook romance, but “over there” I displayed no bravery, at least not in this. I regret it because I believe we could have proved a great comfort to one another, but I did not act.

Act now, she wanted to write, and keep him!

But she didn’t need to. On the one hand, her sentiments quite matched his intentions. On the other, events were already in motion that would enable Klinger to remain close at hand. As they listened to the second half of the performance, Klinger was accepting a job offer over the phone.


	13. Ever after

The next piece of correspondence to pique Charles’ interest was a postcard. The front pictured a hospital, its brick face almost totally lost to ivy, stately trees and a walk in the foreground. Toledo Hospital, Toledo, Ohio it read. 

The writing on the back was hurried scratch, attesting to the correspondent’s excitement. 

Major,

I don’t want to keep turning up like a bad penny, but I have some news I want to share in person. Please write soon and let me know a convenient time to drop in (if you want me to drop in). 

Max 

Charles could have written. He could have phoned. A telegram just seemed more fun. 

Come anytime [Stop] it read. 

Was that somehow not conveyed by cognac adventure? [Stop]. Looking forward. [Stop]. 

Charles [Stop]. 

That yellow message paper became one of Klinger’s most treasured possessions. 

When he told him the news Klinger was excited but hesitant. He’d accepted the job offer assuming Charles would agree to his presence in Boston. The job was designing clothing and would require him to be in New York some of the time, but would leave the rest open for Boston. Now he wondered if he should have clarified things with his paramour first. He found himself backpedaling, saying things like, “I could, uh, see about an apartment, though, if that doesn’t sound good to you, Charles.” 

The use of his given name told Winchester how vulnerable Klinger felt. _He_ felt like resting his head in his hands, eyes closed in exasperation. “Klinger,” he began at last, “would you please tell me just exactly what it is that I must do to convince you that my feelings for you are sincere?” 

Klinger knocked him quite off balance when he replied, “You could choose a record, Major.” 

“A record?” 

“Uh-huh. Something that really sets your heart going. Something _loud_.”

Though he didn’t understand, Charles listed a few titles before adding, “Why?” 

“Because I want you to play it so loud that no one will hear the things I’m begging you to do to me.” 

“The second one then.” 

“How come?”

“It’s much longer.” 

True to his word, Klinger set his clever tongue to saying words he had never previously imagined himself capable of getting out. They shocked Charles, too, but desire came fast on the heels of that shock. Even so, he was careful to ask, “Are you quite sure?”

“It’s what you want, right? That’s the feeling I got when we were, uh, drinking.”

“I do. But only if it’s also what you want. I don’t want you to feel pressured.” 

“I just want to feel you.”

Charles made sure that he did and they celebrated the new life ahead of them, part of which Klinger would spend in New York, part in Boston and one weekend a month in Toledo looking after his mother and uncles. 

After this new stage of their love life concluded, Charles brushed Klinger’s dark hair back from his sweaty face and searched his eyes. “You aren’t hurt, you swear it?”

“Charles, I’m very tough. I survived a pool hall education and a father who was very free with his fists.” 

Charles frowned. “I would have spared you both.” 

Klinger shrugged it off. “It made me quick.”

“Even in heels,” Charles teased.

“Right. I always tried to tell everyone back at the 4077th, you’ve got to be tough to wear a corset. I got a lot of threats. A lot of flack. But I know you’d never hurt me.”

Charles remained concerned. “I wanted to do more than prevent your pain,” he began before hesitating and Klinger smiled at the blush that appeared in his cheeks. 

“What happened to your whole ‘nothing about the body embarrasses me’ stance, Major?” 

“Nothing about _the_ body does. My own performance, however...”

Klinger pulled him down, kissed him. “You were wonderful. You should have been able to tell. I wasn’t exactly quiet.”

The blush Charles wore everywhere deepened. “I, ah, admit that I was rather caught up in how you felt around _me_. I apologize for my selfishness.” 

Klinger laughed. “If I made you forget yourself, I don’t want an apology, Major. I want to do it again!” 

Charles vetoed an immediate encore. He’d waited as long as he’d been able before thrusting, allowing Klinger to adjust to the feel of him, but he wanted to give him time to recover. Instead, he rubbed the smaller man’s back and asked Klinger about his experiences prior his arrival at the 4077th. 

“You said that you had to be tough to dress as you did. Were you ever concerned, being among all those soldiers?” 

“Most of them were scared kids. They saw worse things than me over there. There was one time I was scared though.”

“Oh?”

“It was before you joined the 4077th. I was walking back from guard duty. These three guys were there. They weren’t our guys - maybe they were transporting wounded or dropping off supplies, I don’t know. But to be there in the dark, they had to be waiting on me.”

Charles instantly became fierce and protective. “They hurt you?”

“Three against one? You bet! I’m tough but I ain’t Superman. The thing is, they tore my clothes, too. I think they would have done worse, but then Radar was yelling ‘Choppers’ like he did and the Colonel was clicking his tongue and whistling up Sophie. I never wished anybody hurt in my whole life, but I was glad for that batch of wounded.”

“You went right back to work?” 

“Had to. My hands were shaking bad though. After I dropped the second thing, Major Houlihan read me the riot act. Hawkeye shut her up though. I think he guessed. After OR he took my hands and held onto them ‘til the shaking went out.” He smiled at the memory. “You surgeons all have warm hands, did you know that? He wanted to check me out. Patch me up. I told him I was okay. It was hard to sleep alone that night, though. The fear seeped into me, you know? I wish you had been there, then.” He snuggled against him. 

“As do I. I could have done nothing in the OR, of course, but after... I would have held you.”

_**After**_ _you are holding me_ , thought Klinger, _ever after_. 


	14. Epilogue

He scratched the letter in his record book. It was part of no official case history, of course, and intended neither for publication or for conference presentation. Like all such letters, it began:

Dear Sigmund,

Years ago, I came down hard on a young soldier in a dress. I threatened him, because in doing so, I got to test, I thought, the depth of his commitment to a fraud I felt he was perpetuating on the same army that drafted me. But you know what? I tested his mettle and he rang true - threw my tainted escape plan right back in my face. So, I guess I thought I owed him. That war is behind us now and all it took was a few letters to help Sergeant Maxwell Q. Klinger break into the world of design (he does have a gift for it) and to relocate to Boston. I felt I owed him that little bit of help. I certainly wish him - and his Major, who bears his own bruises from psychiatrists that came before me - all the best. I might not always do no harm, Sigmund, but I try to make up for my mistakes.

Humbly yours,

Sidney


End file.
